The Presidency: Moby Jack

Jackie Kennedy likes to give her sea-loving husband things that are nautical and nice. So for Christmas she gave the President a fine piece of scrimshaw to add to his growing collection. It was a sperm whale’s tooth. 9½ in. long and 4½ in. in diameter. “This wasn’t just an ordinary whale’s tooth,” marveled a White House aide. “I guess it is supposed to be the biggest damn whale’s tooth ever found.”

Jackie’s gift was obtained in New Bedford, Mass., by Artist Milton Delano (a distant and Republican relative of F.D.R.’s), who spent 160 hours etching the Presidential Seal into the ivory and another 80 hours polishing it as clean as a hound’s tooth. Jackie commissioned Delano for the job last summer. At that time. the townspeople of Fairhaven. Mass., presented the President with another, smaller whale’s tooth, on which Delano had etched Jack’s likeness. The President was so delighted with it that Jackie decided he ought to have another.